Social care law change in prospect

Henrietta Spink and her sons Freddie (left) and Henry photographed for the Guardian in 2003. Photograph: Frank Baron

The Law Commission today holds out the prospect of the first comprehensive reform of social care law for more than half a century. Announcing a formal review of what it calls "a confusing patchwork of conflicting statutes", the commission says it aims to recommend a more coherent structure - preferably in the form of a single act of parliament.

The review will cover adult residential care, community care, and support for carers, the legislative frameworks for which have been assembled in piecemeal fashion. As a result, the commission argues, the law is fragmented and difficult to understand and apply.

"There is no single, modern statute to which service providers and service users can look to understand whether services can or should be provided, and what kind of services," says the commission, an independent body responsible for reviewing laws and recommending reform. "For example, there are currently four different statutes covering carers' assessments, all of which differ in a number of respects."

The review is likely to take up to three years. Its outcome could dovetail with any reform of the care and support system arising from the green paper expected next year, following the consultation opened by the government last month.

Among those who have been urging the commission to launch a review are Henrietta and Michael Spink, who have fought long and costly battles to try to secure better services for their profoundly disabled sons, Henry, 20, and Freddie, 16. The couple failed to win a judicial review of care provided by their then local council, Wandsworth, south London. "The court said it was down to the local authority, the local authority said it was up to the courts," Henrietta Spink says. "Nobody was answerable."

The Spinks, who now live in Cornwall, wrote to the commission at the suggestion of a barrister friend. "We were absolutely delighted that a body like the Law Commission was prepared to ... listen to people like us," she says.

The commission points out that one strong reason for modernising social care law is the outdated language and terminology used in some statutes. The National Assistance Act 1948, which can still determine eligibility for community care for disabled people, employs terms such as "mentally disordered", "handicapped" and "suffer[ing] from congenital deformity" that were superseded by definitions in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.